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December 2017 Discussions & Observations Thread

Rtd208

By Rtd208,
in New York City Metro

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SnoSki14

SnoSki14

Posted
Posted

The extent of that blocking the models are showing is drool-worthy. The AO may dive near -5 in December, which is a massive cold/snow signal.

I'm also liking the volatility of the NAO, you never want it to be static. Finally yeah that's a nice look on tonight's gfs with that coastal even if rain is favored.

Some fantastic alignment on the weeklies, it reminds me of Dec 2010 where the pattern was a powder keg. The anticipation was the worst part.

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snowman19

snowman19

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, bluewave said:

We always run the risk of cold and suppressed in a pattern like this which happened in 1985. Even December 2000 waited to the end of December to deliver. Hopefully, this one is able to produce for us. 

True. The Euro weeklies are cold and very dry right through the end of December.... 

 

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IntenseBlizzard2014

IntenseBlizzard2014

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

True. The Euro weeklies are cold and very dry right through the end of December.... 

 

Even incomparison to the average precipitation for December in NYC. That's 2.3 to 2.8" of rainfall. The average is 3.86" of rainfall. That's Below Average precipitation. Yet still good. As long as up to 50% of it is used for rainfall. 

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MJO812

MJO812

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

The extent of that blocking the models are showing is drool-worthy. The AO may dive near -5 in December, which is a massive cold/snow signal.

I'm also liking the volatility of the NAO, you never want it to be static. Finally yeah that's a nice look on tonight's gfs with that coastal even if rain is favored.

Some fantastic alignment on the weeklies, it reminds me of Dec 2010 where the pattern was a powder keg. The anticipation was the worst part.

I thought you said the other day that a warm december is on tap?  0_0

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

The extent of that blocking the models are showing is drool-worthy. The AO may dive near -5 in December, which is a massive cold/snow signal.

I'm also liking the volatility of the NAO, you never want it to be static. Finally yeah that's a nice look on tonight's gfs with that coastal even if rain is favored.

Some fantastic alignment on the weeklies, it reminds me of Dec 2010 where the pattern was a powder keg. The anticipation was the worst part.

Actually most people don't remember this but there were many reliable mets on here going for a mild, snowless winter in 2010-11, right through the middle of December.  We had barely any snow for the majority of the month and a lot of close misses and someone brought up a stat about how bad our winters tend to be if December would have less than 3" of snow- and we were well on our way to achieving that before the big surprise of Boxing Day happened.  That winter turned on a dime (and turned back around in February lol.)  Sometimes I wonder what that winter would have been like if the hail mary pass of Boxing Day hadn't occurred.....and how much did it influence the pattern for the next few weeks after that?

Remember there was a pretty strong La Nina that year and our reliable forecasters were using relatively recent La Nina climatology in doing their winter outlooks.  We have some very old analogs going back to the 1910s, when we had some very cold and snowy La Ninas (even colder and almost as snowy as 1995-96), and those older analogs started to be used once we were well aware that 2010-11 was more like one of those winters than the more recent La Ninas.

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, IntenseBlizzard2014 said:

Even incomparison to the average precipitation for December in NYC. That's 2.3 to 2.8" of rainfall. The average is 3.86" of rainfall. That's Below Average precipitation. Yet still good. As long as up to 50% of it is used for rainfall. 

Yeah as long as we don't get a 1" precipitation month lol.  The cold needs to be timed right with the precip too- we don't want something like where we get 5 days of dry and cold and then one or two days of mild rainy weather.  That averages to a cold month, but the way it gets there is no good.

We're in a wetter climate than what we were in back in the 80s, so I have less concern about enough precip happening and more concern about proper timing with cold shots.  Storms that back in the 80s were passing well offshore seem to want to come right up the coast in this era.

 

 

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MJO812

MJO812

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Paragon said:

Actually most people don't remember this but there were many reliable mets on here going for a mild, snowless winter in 2010-11, right through the middle of December.  We had barely any snow for the majority of the month and a lot of close misses and someone brought up a stat about how bad our winters tend to be if December would have less than 3" of snow- and we were well on our way to achieving that before the big surprise of Boxing Day happened.  That winter turned on a dime (and turned back around in February lol.)  Sometimes I wonder what that winter would have been like if the hail mary pass of Boxing Day hadn't occurred.....and how much did it influence the pattern for the next few weeks after that?

Remember there was a pretty strong La Nina that year and our reliable forecasters were using relatively recent La Nina climatology in doing their winter outlooks.  We have some very old analogs going back to the 1910s, when we had some very cold and snowy La Ninas (even colder and almost as snowy as 1995-96), and those older analogs started to be used once we were well aware that 2010-11 was more like one of those winters than the more recent La Ninas.

NYC had 3 major snowstorms by Feb 1st that winter ( 1 in December and 2 in January )

I had close to 60 inches by February. I think NYC would have broken 1996 record if the blocking didn't break down in the 2nd half 

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

NYC had 3 major snowstorms by Feb 1st that winter ( 1 in December and 2 in January )

I had close to 60 inches by February. I think NYC would have broken 1996 record if the blocking didn't break down in the 2nd half 

We were within 50 miles of having three HECS that winter, remember the middle storm that dropped like 9 inches here, dropped 20 inches in Central Suffolk County.  That was a historic 5 week period where we easily could have gotten 3 20 inch snowstorms.  And the snowpack reached historically high levels and lasted for a historically long time- through the middle of February even though that month was a dud for us.

 

All 3 of those storms were on a knife's edge though- very small margins of error and any or all of them could easily not have happened.

Reminds me of the February 1989 debacle when ACY had 20" and we had nothing.  But in 2010-11 we were the lucky ones.

 

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bluewave

bluewave

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, PB GFI said:

Thats definitely a risks and I expect that it's dry for a time.

But living here It's either the PAC is too fast and we run the risk of wet and warm or the vortex presses so much that impulses just dive to your south.

We are not a snowy climate.

The reason a lot of us look at these high latitude blocking patterns favorably is because you just need 1 vort to hug the barroclinic zone combined  with a relaxation of HP and if a system  slows behind traffic , then it's on.

( clippers aside ).

It's why I hump temps in here , thats because sometimes that's the easier part and we need the set up to produce anything.

Too often what we want just doesn't happen.

Snow / storms will appear and disappear in the guidance and in the end they are just too hard to forecast with any skill from a distance.

So far for the 2010's all 9 winter months with below normal temperatures featured above normal snowfall. Hopefully, this is just a case of being patient and waiting for an interval where the extreme blocking relaxes enough for a decent storm. Normal snowfall here in December in in the 4-5" range for most.

In any event, it's fun to watch the long range ensembles playing catch up on the cold. It will seem even colder since Decembers have been so warm here in recent years.

New run

eps_t850_anom_noram_276.thumb.png.416569fe6baffdf9e1d0ab9cc3779c63.png

 

Old run

 

eps_t850_anom_noram_360.thumb.png.2ed0105bec294c6a9fefd85f1febd0f5.png

 

 

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MJO812

MJO812

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Paragon said:

We were within 50 miles of having three HECS that winter, remember the middle storm that dropped like 9 inches here, dropped 20 inches in Central Suffolk County.  That was a historic 5 week period where we easily could have gotten 3 20 inch snowstorms.  And the snowpack reached historically high levels and lasted for a historically long time- through the middle of February even though that month was a dud for us.

 

All 3 of those storms were on a knife's edge though- very small margins of error and any or all of them could easily not have happened.

Reminds me of the February 1989 debacle when ACY had 20" and we had nothing.  But in 2010-11 we were the lucky ones.

 

I got 25 inches from the boxing day storm , 11 from the mid January storm and 18 from the end of January storm.

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

I got 25 inches from the boxing day storm , 11 from the mid January storm and 18 from the end of January storm.

When we have so many storms I really feel the need to be naming them :P I felt the same way about 2009-10.  Use areal and population coverage of 10+inch snows (or winter storm warnings) as the criteria.

 

 

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
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53 minutes ago, bluewave said:

So far for the 2010's all 9 winter months with below normal temperatures featured above normal snowfall. Hopefully, this is just a case of being patient and waiting for an interval where the extreme blocking relaxes enough for a decent storm. Normal snowfall here in December in in the 4-5" range for most.

In any event, it's fun to watch the long range ensembles playing catch up on the cold. It will seem even colder since Decembers have been so warm here in recent years.

New run

eps_t850_anom_noram_276.thumb.png.416569fe6baffdf9e1d0ab9cc3779c63.png

 

Old run

 

eps_t850_anom_noram_360.thumb.png.2ed0105bec294c6a9fefd85f1febd0f5.png

 

 

Yep, when was the last time we had a below normal winter temperature month with below normal snowfall?  I think the lack of these is due to the current climate regime favoring above normal precip in all months.

 

 

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Paragon

Paragon

Posted
Posted
Just now, TheCloser24 said:

Some parts of CT had 3 major snowstorms during Jan 2011. There was a norlun trough on January 7th that dropped 6"-18" of snow in western areas of CT, in addition to the January 11th and 26th-27th noreasters.

That's right- I think that was a 3-5 inch storm here.

 

 

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bluewave

bluewave

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Paragon said:

Yep, when was the last time we had a below normal winter temperature month with below normal snowfall?  I think the lack of these is due to the current climate regime favoring above normal precip in all months.

 

 

The only time that seemed to happen was during the 1980's with cold months with below normal snowfall. Even an above normal temperature month here like January 2016 was snowier than every winter month in the 1980's warm or cold.

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Ralph Wiggum

Ralph Wiggum

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

The GFS/GEFS especially has had this tendency for years now. It blows up massive -NAOs/Greenland blocks in the long range, only to either back off big time or loose it altogether as we move forward in time 

I've seen it do the exact opposite also with a +NAO that it blows up in the LR and backs off in time to a -NAO. It works both ways. 

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